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1. Development and Validation of the Calculated and Spontaneous Risk‐Taking Scale (CASPRT)

   https://doi.org/10.1002/bdm.70020  

   Zhang, Don C; Smith, Rachel Williamson (July 2025, Journal of Behavioral Decision Making)

   ABSTRACT Risk preference is a key concept across social, economic, and decision sciences. While existing measures assess risk taking either as domain‐specific preferences (e.g., finance and health) or as a general trait, they have largely overlooked individual differences in the narrow, domain‐general aspects of risk preference. Drawing from a dual‐process framework, we advance a multidimensional domain‐general measure of risk preference. We develop and validate the Calculated and Spontaneous Risk‐Taking Scale across seven studies (N = 2116). Results show (1) the two risk styles are moderately correlated and align with existing risk preference measures; (2) they are distinct from personality traits like the Big Five and cognitive traits like decision style; (3) calculated risk‐takers show more variability in risk attitudes across contexts; (4) calculated risk‐taking predicts adaptive outcomes (e.g., creativity and entrepreneurship), while spontaneous risk‐taking predicts maladaptive behaviors (e.g., crime, safety violations); and (5) the scale is invariant across sex and age. Overall, calculated risk‐takers engage in more adaptive risks, leading to healthier, more meaningful lives. 

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2. Relationship between Delay Discounting and Risk Preference in Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and Humans

   Keupp, Stefanie; Grueneisen, Sebastian; Warneken, Felix; Ludvig, Elliot Andrew; Melis, Alicia P. (July 2021, Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society)

   Adaptive decisions require that decision makers factor in the subjective values of different possible outcomes, and the probability of these outcomes occurring. Subjective values depend, among other things, on how far an outcome is away in time. This can be captured by assessing an individual’s delay discounting of different options. An individual’s risk preference also affects how attractive particular choice options appear to them. In humans, probability discounting and delay discounting are often related. People who show more risky behaviors also tend to be more impulsive and less patient. Based on such findings, single-process models of delay discounting and probability discounting have been suggested. In the current study, we tested if this relationship is equally present in chimpanzees, one of human’s closest extant evolutionary relatives. We presented 23 chimpanzees with a patience task and a risky-choice task. The patience task was designed to explicitly distinguish between delay preference and self-control (i.e., the ability to wait a given delay). Still, we found no strong correlations between risk and delay preferences. As this task has not been used with humans before, we implemented a computerized version and tested it in a sample of twenty adult participants. Initial results indicate that the task is well suited to capture patience, and it makes a promising candidate to be used in behavioral delay discounting experiments in humans. 

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3. Variation in primate decision-making under uncertainty and the roots of human economic behaviour

   https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2019.0671  

   De Petrillo, Francesca; Rosati, Alexandra G. (March 2021, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences)

   null (Ed.)

   Uncertainty is a ubiquitous component of human economic behaviour, yet people can vary in their preferences for risk across populations, individuals and different points in time. As uncertainty also characterizes many aspects of animal decision-making, comparative research can help evaluate different potential mechanisms that generate this variation, including the role of biological differences or maturational change versus cultural learning, as well as identify human-unique components of economic decision-making. Here, we examine decision-making under risk across non-human primates, our closest relatives. We first review theoretical approaches and current methods for understanding decision-making in animals. We then assess the current evidence for variation in animal preferences between species and populations, between individuals based on personality, sex and age, and finally, between different contexts and individual states. We then use these primate data to evaluate the processes that can shape human decision-making strategies and identify the primate foundations of human economic behaviour. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Existence and prevalence of economic behaviours among non-human primates’. 

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4. Vasopressin, and not oxytocin, receptor gene methylation is associated with individual differences in receptive joint attention in chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes )

   https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.2895  

   Hopkins, William D.; Staes, Nicky; Guevara, Elaine E.; Mulholland, Michele M.; Sherwood, Chet C.; Bradley, Brenda J. (February 2023, Autism Research)

   Abstract Joint attention (JA) is an important milestone in human infant development and is predictive of the onset of language later in life. Clinically, it has been reported that children at risk for or with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) perform more poorly on measures of JA compared to neurotypical controls. JA is not unique to humans but has also been reported in great apes and to a lesser extent in more distantly related monkeys. Further, individual differences in JA among chimpanzees are associated with polymorphisms in the vasopressin and oxytocin genes,AVPR1AandOXTR. Here, we tested whether individual variation in DNA methylation ofOXTRandAVPR1Awere associated with performance on JA tasks in chimpanzees. We found that individual differences in JA performance was associated withAVPR1Amethylation, but notOXTRmethylation in the chimpanzees. The collective results provide further evidence of the role ofAVPR1Ain JA abilities in chimpanzees. The results further suggest that methylation values forAVPR1Amay be useful biomarkers for identifying individuals at risk for ASD or related neurodevelopmental disorders associated with impairments in JA abilities. 

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5. Sex moderates the effects of total sleep deprivation and sleep restriction on risk preference

   https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/zsac120  

   Lim, Jeryl Y. L.; Boardman, Johanna; Dyche, Jeff; Anderson, Clare; Dickinson, David L.; Drummond, Sean P. A. (June 2022, Sleep)

   Abstract Sleep loss has been shown to alter risk preference during decision-making. However, research in this area has largely focussed on the effects of total sleep deprivation (TSD), while evidence on the effects of sleep restriction (SR) or the potentially moderating role of sex on risk preference remains scarce and unclear. The present study investigated risky decision-making in 47 healthy young adults who were assigned to either of two counterbalanced protocols: well-rested (WR) and TSD, or WR and SR. Participants were assessed on the Lottery Choice Task (LCT), which requires a series of choices between two risky gambles with varying risk levels. Analyses on the pooled dataset indicated across all sleep conditions, participants were generally more risk-seeking when trying to minimise financial loss (LOSSES) than while trying to maximise financial gain (GAINS). On GAINS trials, female participants were more risk-averse during TSD and SR, whereas male participants remained unchanged. On LOSSES trials, female participants remained unchanged during TSD and SR, whereas male participants became more risk-seeking during TSD. Our findings suggest the relationship between sleep loss and risk preference is moderated by sex, whereby changes in risk preference after TSD or SR differ in men and women depending on whether the decision is framed in terms of gains or losses. 

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